60 Fun Facts About Ghost

The English word 'ghost' comes from an Old English word meaning what?

Anthropologists link the classic pale ghost to the visible white mist of breath in cold air, seen as the person's spirit leaving the body.

According to a 2005 Gallup poll, roughly what share of Americans said they believe in ghosts?

A poll of Chinese office workers reported by the China Post put belief there at nearly 87 percent.

Which Roman writer recorded the haunted-house story of the philosopher Athenodorus in Athens?

The ghost, rattling its chains, led Athenodorus to a spot where a skeleton in chains was later dug up.

Why did the sheet-draped ghost replace the armoured ghost on 19th-century stages?

The clanking suit could not deliver the spookiness the age demanded, so the shroud took over and became the Halloween cliché.

What does the German word poltergeist literally mean?

Skeptics tend to explain poltergeist cases as juvenile pranksters fooling credulous adults.

Which 1990 film about a murdered man who returns as a spirit was the highest-grossing movie of that year?

Patrick Swayze's Sam Wheat made $505 million on a budget of about $22 million and was the most-rented video of 1991.

Who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing the con-artist medium Oda Mae Brown?

Bruce Joel Rubin also won for the screenplay; the film's love theme was the 1955 song "Unchained Melody."

A Christmas Carol was first published in London in which year?

Dickens wrote it in six weeks and the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve.

In A Christmas Carol, what does Jacob Marley's ghost drag behind him?

He warns Scrooge that three spirits will follow, and that Scrooge's own chains will be heavier still.

How many years before the story opens did Marley die?

The book opens on a bleak Christmas Eve, and its full title calls it 'A Ghost Story of Christmas.'

Which 1999 film introduced the line 'I see dead people'?

The filmmakers worried the slow zoom on Bruce Willis's face during the line would give away the twist, but left it in.

How many Academy Award nominations did Shyamalan's 1999 ghost film receive?

They included Best Picture and nods for Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette; it grossed over $672 million.

Casper the Friendly Ghost first appeared in theatrical cartoons made by which studio?

Fifty-five shorts ran from 1945 to 1959, and Harvey Comics bought the character outright in 1959.

What distinction did Casper achieve in his 1995 live-action film?

His three wicked uncles are the Ghostly Trio, and the film starred Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman.

Which house in Essex did psychic researcher Harry Price call 'the most haunted house in England'?

Built in 1862 and burned in 1939, it drew national attention after a 1929 Daily Mirror story; the Society for Psychical Research later discredited most of Price's claims.

Anne Boleyn's ghost is said to walk the Tower of London carrying what?

She was beheaded in 1536 and buried in the Tower's Church of St Peter ad Vincula, which she supposedly haunts.

The Flying Dutchman legend probably grew out of which nation's 17th-century maritime golden age?

Sightings claim the ship glows with a ghostly light, and its appearance is taken as a portent of doom.

Which future British king recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman as a young naval cadet?

Prince George's 1881 log entry off Australia is one of the legend's best-known 'sightings.'

In Hamlet, who first witnesses the ghost of the dead king on the battlements?

They fetch the prince, and the ghost tells him he was murdered by his brother Claudius.

Henry James's ghost novella The Turn of the Screw was first serialised in which magazine in 1898?

Critics still argue whether the governess really sees the ghosts of Quint and Miss Jessel or imagines them.

What does the Irish banshee's name, bean sí, literally mean?

She heralds a family death by wailing or keening, and is often seen combing her long hair.

What is the Latin name for the will-o'-the-wisp, the ghost light seen over bogs?

In Britain it is also called jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern and hinkypunk; in Thailand the Naga fireballs on the Mekong are a cousin.

What is the Chasse-galerie of Quebec folklore?

It is doomed to paddle the skies; Chile has the Caleuche, a ghost ship that sails at night around Chiloé Island.

The Bell Witch legend centres on a family in which US state?

From 1817 to 1821 the Bells of Robertson County were said to be tormented by an invisible, talking, shape-shifting entity.

How many days did the Lutz family last in the Amityville house before fleeing in 1975?

Ronald DeFeo Jr. had murdered six family members at 112 Ocean Avenue the year before; the 1977 book spawned films from 1979 on.

The stage illusion Pepper's ghost was popularised in 1862 in a production of a work by which author?

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain caused a sensation; the trick still powers Disney's Haunted Mansion.

Which Disneyland attraction uses Pepper's ghost for its ballroom of dancing spirits?

The same trick produced the Girl-to-Gorilla carnival sideshow and, more recently, concert 'holograms.'

The Ouija board was named in 1890 in which US city?

Medium Helen Peters Nosworthy chose the name; Elijah Bond's patent followed in 1891 and William Fuld took over production in 1901.

What is the heart-shaped pointer on a Ouija board called?

Its movement is explained by the ideomotor effect: unconscious muscle movements by the people touching it.

What psychological phenomenon best explains how a Ouija pointer moves?

The board was seen as an innocent parlour game until spiritualist Pearl Curran popularised it as a divining tool in World War I.

Which organisation, founded in 1882 in Britain, pioneered systematic investigation of ghosts and mediums?

Harry Price joined in 1920 and used his stage-magic knowledge to expose fraudulent mediums, including a 'spirit photographer' in 1922.

What does the ghost-hunting acronym EMF stand for?

Skeptics note EMF meters are set off by wiring, microwave towers and phones, and were never designed to detect ghosts.

Which two TV series are credited with popularising paranormal investigation in the 2000s?

Ghost Adventures, with Zak Bagans, followed; the mainstream scientific view treats the whole field as pseudoscience.

Harry Price exposed which 'spirit photographer' as a fraud in 1922?

Price counted Harry Houdini among his fellow debunkers, though his own Borley Rectory claims were later doubted.

The 1977 Enfield poltergeist case was judged by two leading psychical researchers to be what?

Ed and Lorraine Warren, of Amityville fame, also involved themselves in the case.

The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a dead person is called what?

In spiritism the same practice is a séance; exorcisms and funeral rites are designed instead to lay spirits to rest.

In Buddhism, the realm of 'hungry ghosts' is what?

East Asian Ghost Festivals feed these spirits, and Japan's Obon and Mexico's Day of the Dead honour returning ancestors.

By legend, at least how many ravens must be kept at the Tower of London or the kingdom falls?

The Tower's other famous ghosts include the Princes in the Tower, who vanished there in the late 15th century.

The Amityville house was the scene of what real crime in November 1974?

DeFeo was convicted of second-degree murder in 1975 and died in prison in 2021.

Casper has appeared in comic books from which publisher since 1952?

Harvey made him one of its most popular characters alongside Wendy the Good Little Witch and Spooky.

How long did Dickens take to write A Christmas Carol?

His biographer says it was written 'at white heat,' with the last pages finished in early December.

What is Ghost's Sam Wheat's profession before he is murdered?

His best friend Carl turns out to have arranged the mugging to steal Sam's book of bank passwords.

Which royal brought his new bride to see the Pepper's ghost illusion in 1863?

The show ran the whole of 1863 and launched an international fad for ghost plays.

In which year did Martin V. Ingram publish the first full-length record of the Bell family haunting?

Some skeptics regard Ingram's book as historical fiction; others as an early piece of folklore study.

Where was the 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film, the most famous alleged Bigfoot footage, shot?

Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were out filming a Bigfoot docudrama at the time; a stretch of State Route 96 nearby is now the Bigfoot Scenic Byway.

'Bigfoot' was coined in 1958 after 16-inch prints appeared at a logging site in which state?

Bulldozer operator Jerry Crew found the tracks in Humboldt County; a man later claimed he had made them with carved wooden feet to scare off thieves.

The 1934 'surgeon's photograph' of the Loch Ness Monster was later revealed to show what?

Christian Spurling, stepson of big-game hunter M. A. Wetherell, admitted building it; the photo was credited to London gynaecologist Robert Kenneth Wilson.

The 1990s Air Force reports said the debris found near Roswell in 1947 came from which secret programme?

Mogul flew microphone-carrying balloon trains to listen for Soviet nuclear tests; the Army had first announced a 'flying disc' and retracted it within a day.

Which self-proclaimed psychic flopped on the 1973 Tonight Show after James Randi helped prepare the props?

He is best known for spoon bending; the show's staff kept him away from the props, and he told Carson 'This scares me'.

Around which West Virginia town was the Mothman reportedly seen in 1966-67?

John Keel's 1975 book tied the sightings to the collapse of the Silver Bridge; a 2002 film starred Richard Gere.

The chupacabra legend was first reported in 1995 on which island?

Caribbean reports describe a reptilian creature with spines down its back; in the US Southwest it is usually a hairless, fanged dog-like animal.

Project Blue Book, the US Air Force's UFO study, ran from 1952 until it was terminated in which year?

Of its 12,618 reports, 701 stayed unexplained; it was headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

How many cards are in a standard deck of Zener cards used in ESP experiments?

Five each of a circle, plus sign, wavy lines, square and star; Karl Zener designed them in the 1930s for J. B. Rhine's parapsychology lab.

What term does the subculture use for unproven creatures like the Yeti and mokele-mbembe?

Cryptozoology is considered a pseudoscience because it does not follow the scientific method.

In June 2013 the CIA acknowledged Area 51's existence in response to a FOIA request about which aircraft?

The released history covered the U-2 and OXCART projects; the base is beside the Groom Lake salt flat in Nevada.

Ghost Adventures, led by Zak Bagans, premiered in 2008 on which network?

It grew out of a 2007 documentary film about Virginia City, Nevada, and the Goldfield Hotel; the series moved to Discovery+ in 2021.

How did Homer describe ghosts vanishing in the Iliad and Odyssey?

Homeric shades had little to do with the living, appearing mainly when summoned for prophecy or advice.

In which Gospel passage does the risen Jesus have to convince the disciples he is not a ghost?

The KJV renders the word as 'spirit'; ancient writers Plautus and Lucian also spun haunted-house tales.

Under which pseudonym did French educator Hippolyte Rivail write the five books of the Spiritist Codification?

He attributed the phenomena he observed at séances to incorporeal intelligences, and his codification became the basis of Spiritism.

Which country has the largest number and proportion of Spiritism's followers?

The movement also has adherents in Spain, the United States, Japan and Germany, among others.